For me, this is one of the ways social starts to get really exciting for brands, and it’s not with a cool Facebook app or innovative social play, just smart thinking combined with the drive to make it happen. So, IKEA created a seriously good PR stunt, the Facebook Fan Sleepover…

After finding a Facebook group with almost 100,000 people called “I Wanna Have A Sleepover In Ikea“… IKEA themselves created a competition for their Facebook Fans to be part of a giant sleepover at the Essex IKEA store for 100 people. What a great way to turn fans into advocates.

Not only was it a PR stunt, but a great way to actually have people test out products like mattresses for longer than 10 minutes! Complete with a sleep expert on hand for advice. Via PSFK. Thoughts?

Totally agree with you. This is a very clever way of creating a real life positive experience for fans of the brand. Social media is all about creating engagement and conversations and this does that in an innovative way. This is the kind of thing we need to see more of in 2012.

This is definitely a great idea. And I agree with you that social has really made things exciting for companies with their brand building exercise. It definitely throws in a lot of room for creativity and better ways to reach out to the target audience. One thing I learned before I became a bestselling author and long before Inc Magazine voted my company as one of the fastest growing companies is that connecting to the audience and talking to them in ways that make sense to them is a winner.

Aden I like it – I like the fact they took a group and did something in the real world. I always prefer the campaigns that do that. Like the one Sony Ericsson did a few years back with tweets that pumped up space hoppers. They already had a captive audience here though as these people had already said they wanted to have a sleepover there – so I feel that make it a bit easier. I still like it though – at least they did something.

[...] “I want to have a sleepover at Ikea” on Facebook, Ikea in Essex organized just that.. A massive fan sleepover in their store, with new fresh Ikea linen, goodie bags and an evening snack in the Ikea Cafe! Wish [...]